


Field Dressing

by theDeadTree



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Established Relationship, Fluff, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-23
Updated: 2016-09-23
Packaged: 2018-08-16 21:36:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,878
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8118394
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theDeadTree/pseuds/theDeadTree
Summary: Inquisitor Lavellan rips apart a carcass while musing about home. Dorian interrupts.





	

Hadrian Lavellan sat cross-legged on a large boulder on the edge of the Enavuris River, leaning over the carcass of his latest kill under the faint light of the moon. He carefully and methodically began dragging his knife through the dead snoufleur’s flesh, ignoring the blood that poured from the incision, over his hands and dripping onto the boulder’s smooth surface. He hadn’t done any proper hunting, and by extension, any field dressing, since before the attack on Haven, and much to his irritation, it showed. The knife shook in his hands and he leaned away as far as he could, wrinkling his nose at the smell.

He’d been banished from camp for this very reason, largely at Dorian’s insistence.

The thought brought a small smile to the Dalish hunter’s lips as he worked, forcing himself to push through the discomforts of what he was doing. It was something he’d never really been able to understand about his beloved Tevinter mage. This - living in the wilderness, struggling to survive, being constantly at the mercy of nature - had been his entire life for as long as he could remember. He never thought anyone could be so disdainful of the entire idea. He supposed that was simply a testament to how truly different they were.

Dorian didn’t care that Hadrian had successfully killed the snoufleur in a single shot, even while the creature was hiding in the long grass under cover of night – which made it, by all accounts, an impressive kill. He didn’t care that their rations would not last forever, regardless of how conservatively people consumed them. He didn’t care that the creature would provide not only meat, but leather, fat, and bone. He cared about being warm and avoiding getting rained on. He cared about the fact that a dead animal meant blood and organs and a terrible smell he refused to subject himself to. He cared about the fact that Hadrian had, again, dragged him out on an expedition to somewhere he found entirely unpleasant and completely unnecessary – which, of course, was exactly why Hadrian did it.

Perhaps he found a little too much satisfaction in putting the mage in situations he wasn’t comfortable and watching him squirm. But he also wanted to share this part of his life with him. If he couldn’t drag Dorian back to the Free Marches to meet his own clan – because that would go over _so_ well – then the Dirthavaren would have to do.

Blood oozed from the incision, staining both the smooth white skin of the snoufleur and his hands as he worked his way from the animal’s sternum to the crotch. Hadrian ignored it, pursing his lips as he tore the knife free before reaching into the carcass, carefully scooping out guts and cutting through the sinew that kept it all in place before tossing it aside.

Around him, a herd of wild halla had settled down for the night. It had taken him an absurdly long time to earn their trust, but days of wandering the Plains and silently offering food and protection from predators had finally begun to pay off. Even now, as he ripped apart a cadaver, the halla didn’t seem to mind. Their nonchalant attitude reminded him of his own clan’s halla.

It had never occurred to him just how much he missed being amongst halla until now. More than once, he’d been found fast asleep in the grass while their clan’s halla grazed around him. He would usually wake to one of the beasts gently nuzzling him and if she had been the one to discover him there, Eirian laughing as she made endless quips about how Hadrian seemed to prefer the company of the halla over that of the actual clan.

Hadrian let out a quiet and wistful sigh at the thought of his clan – his family, his friends; everyone he’d ever known before making the journey south to the Conclave. In the months since the explosion, he’d been so busy he’d barely spared a second thought to the life he’d led before. He wished he could go back. In that moment, there was nothing he wanted more.

“Amatus, what are you doing?” the familiar voice of Dorian called out to him suddenly.

Hadrian jumped in surprise at the sound of the Tevinter mage’s voice and twisted around just in time to see the man himself approach.

“I wouldn’t step-”

He was interrupted by a loud _squelch_ and a shout of alarm and disgust. _“Kaffas!”_

“…there,” he finished lamely.

“What is that?” the altus demanded loudly. “What _is_ that?”

Hadrian shrugged innocently before realising that Dorian likely couldn’t see the gesture. “A bit of blood, a bit of guts. Your favourite.”

The instant the words were out of his mouth, they were suddenly illuminated as a small flame sparked to life in Dorian’s hand. He looked down, staring at the ground at his feet, lip curling in disgust when he realised that Hadrian hadn’t been lying. He staggered out of the bloody mass of organs, coughing and gagging before glancing up at Hadrian, utterly repulsed. This time, he did give an innocent shrug, before bursting out in laughter just a couple of seconds later.

“It isn’t _funny,_ Hadrian!”

“I beg to differ,” he replied, still struggling to stifle his mirth.

For so long, neither of them said anything as Dorian silently sulked and Hadrian tried to focus on breathing normally. He wasn’t sure if he’d ever met anyone so pedantic before in his life. He had no idea that anyone was even _capable_ of being that finicky.

“Maker, it’s pitch black out here,” Dorian grumbled as he scraped his boot on the boulder, his face twisted into a grimace. “How can you see anything?”

A small smile pulled at the corners of Hadrian’s lips at the question. “You haven’t known a lot of elves, have you?”

“I assume that’s supposed to somehow answer my question,” Dorian muttered, mostly to himself. “Ugh…this is never going to come out.”

“I did tell you not bring your good clothes.”

 _“All_ my clothes are my best clothes, amatus.”

“And somehow that doesn’t surprise me,” Hadrian grunted, carefully cutting the last of the ligaments holding any remaining guts to the spine and scooping them out, carelessly dumping them on the pile of already discarded organs.

Dorian wrinkled his nose in disgust. “Are you _still_ cutting up that cadaver?”

“Yes,” Hadrian answered shortly, reaching into the snoufleur once more, carefully cutting through the diaphragm, ignoring the blood that poured from the wound. He saw Dorian wrinkle his nose in his peripheral vision, but chose not to pay him any mind. He needed to focus on what he was doing more than he needed to somehow win back Dorian’s approval.

“You’re getting blood everywhere.”

“I noticed.”

“That doesn’t concern you?”

“I know what I’m doing, Dorian.”

Or at least, he thought he did. A snoufleur was a far different beast to the braces of nugs he’d brought back from his many forays into the mountains surrounding Haven, but he assumed the general theory was still the same. He should know this. He was a hunter, after all – it should come as naturally to him as firing a bow.

“Truly?” Dorian asked, unconvinced. “Because it doesn’t seem that way to me.”

With a frustrated sigh, Hadrian turned to face the Tevinter mage, holding up his bloodied hands for the world to see.

“If you think you know better, then _please,_ show me,” he challenged.

For a moment, Dorian watched him in silence, and Hadrian briefly considered the possibility of him actually taking up the challenge. Ultimately, however, Dorian simply sniffed and looked away.

“It just seems like there should be a cleaner way to do things,” he muttered after a silence. “Although why you insist on this at all is still beyond me.”

“Do you _want_ to eat tonight?”

“You do realise we still have rations.”

Hadrian just shook his head. “We can’t live on those forever, and you know it. Sooner or later, I’m going to have to teach half the Inquisition how to hunt.”

“I look forward to it.”

At his words, the knife slipped from Hadrian’s grip and he turned to stare at the mage, eyes wide with surprise and disbelief. “What?”

Dorian’s brow creased a little when he saw the shocked expression plastered across Hadrian’s face. _“What?”_

“You didn’t just say that. Did you?”

“Well, I _am_ looking forward to seeing your flailing attempt to teach anyone _anything,”_ he said a little defensively, before pausing to think about it for a second. “Especially Sera.”

 _“Sera_ already knows how to shoot and gut an animal,” Hadrian pointed out, trying to work out how best to remove the snoufleur’s heart and lungs. “I mean, her technique is all over the place, but at least she _knows._ Unlike a certain highborn Tevinter mage I know.”

“A certain highborn Tevinter mage never had to learn.”

“You know, in Dalish culture, you’re not considered an adult until you can successfully hunt on your own.”

“The Dalish also tattoo their faces with ink made from their own blood,” Dorian pointed out blandly, gesturing vaguely at Hadrian’s vallaslin. “We’re hardly in a place to make comparisons.”

“I’ll tell them you said that.”

A small, crooked smile pulled at the corners of Dorian’s lips. “Should I be frightened?”

“Maybe. The Keeper takes our traditions very seriously.”

“Ah, the wrath of an elderly Dalish mage. I’m positively quaking.”

Hadrian grinned. He couldn’t help himself. “You haven’t met Keeper Deshanna.”

As the words left him, he found himself wondering just how the clan would react when and if they ever met Dorian. Not well; of that he was sure. But they’d always been reasonably open and tolerant of humans, so it was within the realm of possibility that they’d eventually warm up to the idea, right? He had to hope so. It was all he could do to hold out hope that his mother, his sisters, and his closest friends, at least, would be happy that he was happy. That was his ideal. And he was so sure reality wasn’t going to live up to that expectation that he’d been very careful to leave out any and all mention of Dorian every time he wrote home.

Carefully, he set his knife down and glanced up at the sky, counting the stars overhead and trying to see if he could make out any of the constellations. As his eyes traced out the shapes, he was inundated with memories of his father patiently teaching him each one, and how to use them to navigate the wilds, even in the dark. The sad reality was that his knowledge of the stars was one of the few mementoes he had of his father.

“As lovely as it is out here, amatus,” Dorian began, his voice cutting through the silence, “the tent is wretchedly cold without you.”

Hadrian laughed. “You are _so_ clingy; you know that?”

“And _you_ are far too handsome to spend your nights out here in the freezing cold with a corpse.”

“Well, I’m glad someone thinks so.”

“So you’ll come?”

Hadrian smiled faintly. “Yeah, yeah, I’m coming. Just give me a minute to clean this up.”


End file.
